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Blockbuster Sued over Facebook Beacon Program

Remember Facebook’s Beacon program? That’s the program that uses Facebook user’s purchase information on partner websites to advertise those websites to the user’s social network. Here are a couple of posts on the controversy from David at Inside the Marketer’s Studio blog that explain the controversy: Facebook Social Ads Need an Opt-OutFacebook’s About Face on Social Ads (Finally)
A Texas plaintiff filed a class action suit against Blockbuster for violating the Video Privacy Protection Act, U.S.C. § 2710 by releasing customers’ video rental records with Facebook.
Complaint in Harris v. Blockbuster
MediaPost reports: Blockbuster Sued For Participating In Facebook’s Beacon Program: “A Texas resident has filed a federal lawsuit against Blockbuster for participating in Facebook’s Beacon program, which tells members about their friends’ e-commerce activity. In the lawsuit, quietly filed last week, Dallas County resident Cathryn Elaine Harris claims that Blockbuster violated the federal Videotape Privacy Protection Act by sharing information about her movie rentals and sales with Facebook without first obtaining her written consent.”
And here’s a thoughtful analysis from December on applying the VPPA to Beacon from James Grimmelmann, Facebook and the VPPA: Uh-Oh

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While blog posts here may discuss topics involving legal issues, the discussion is for informational purposes only. Nothing on this site is intended to be legal advice and so should not be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel in your neighborhood.